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ai?d  0^5093!  I  iberty. 


DEIJV^ED 


BY 


i,  o^io. 

i  udary  25,  1889. 


Sabbath  Legislation  and  Personal  Liberty. 

LECTURE  BY  THE  REV.  DR.  DAVID  PHILIPSON. 

LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN  : — 

Periodically  there  breaks  out  in  this  country  an  excited 
feeling  that  puts  those  whom  it  affects  into  a  high  state  of 
delirium,  in  which  condition  they  see  and  imagine  things 
in  a  very  distorted  light,  and  feel  that  unless  they  do  some- 
thing to  recall  the  people  from  their  waywardness  and  save 
them  from  the  evil  courses  whereinto  they  have  fallen, 
the  souls  of  millions  will  be  lost  forever  and  eternally.  At 
this  period  such  a  feeling  is  again  asserting  its  sway  and 
is  well  nigh  at  its  height.  Some  time  ago,  a  movement  known 
as  the  Sabbath  Reform  Movement  was  started  in  the  East, 
and  with  a  great  blow  of  trumpets  it  was  announced  that 
a  monster  petition,  signed  by  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
names,  was  to  be  presented  to  Congress,  demanding  that 
the  highest  legislative  body  of  the  country  pass  measures  en- 
forcing  a  strictobservance  of  the  Sunday,  forbidding  all  pleas- 
ures and  amusements,  prohibiting  work  of  each  and  every 
kind,  in  short  making  of  the  first  day  of  the  week  a  time  of 
enforced  worship,  of  somberness  and  of  gloom. 

The  object  of  the  whole  movement  is  to  reinstate  the 
Puritan  Sunday  with  all  its  darkness  and  heaviness,  to  force 
all  the  citizens  of  this  country  without  distinction  of  individ- 
ual belief,  creed  or  preference  to  participate  in  the  observ- 
ance of  such  a  day ;  in  short  to  overthrow  one  of  the  bul- 
warks of  our  constitution,  and  hence  undermine  that  per- 
sonal liberty  which  is  the  condition  and  the  safe-guard  of 
our  grand  and  glorious  institutions.  This  whole  matter 


assumes  fresh  interest  for  us  from  two  articles  that  appeared 
in  the  daily  press  during  the  past  week,  the  one  reporting 
a  movement  emanating  from  the  Evangelical  Alliance  of 
this  city,  the  other  from  the  German  Society  naming  itself 
"  Der  Bund  f  uer  Freiheit  und  Rscht."  The  two  take  diamet- 
rically opposite  positions  on  the  question  and  I  feel  it 
necessary  that  we  also  as  Jews,  who  belong  neither  to  the 
one  wing  nor  the  other,  except  in  so  far  as  we  are  all  citizens 
of  this  one  great  land,  that  we  as  the  Jews  of  this  community 
now  that  the  agitation  has  also  reached  this  city,  that  we 
as  Jews,  the  confessors  of  the  religion  that  gave  the  Sabbath 
as  the  day  of  religious  observance  to  the  world,  although  as 
a  day  of  rest  it  was  known  already  among  other  peoples  in 
ancient  times,  have  our  word  in  this  most  interesting,  nay, 
not  only  interesting,  but  vital  discussion,  vital  in  as  far  as  it 
affects  the  very  bone  and  sinew  of  the  body  constitutional  of 
theUnited  States.  The  afore-mentioned  Evangelical  Alliance 
we  are  informed  is  now  also  busying  itself  in  securing  signa- 
tures to  a  petition  to  organize  a  committee  of  five  hundred 
to  secure  the  nomination  and  election  of  officers  in  this  cityi 
who  will  pledge  themselves  to  enforce  all  the  Sunday  laws 
of  whatever  character  they  may  be,  or  as  the  facetious  news- 
paper scribe  expressed  it,  'Sunday  laws,  blue,  red  and  other.'1 
For  this  purpose  a  meeting  has  been  called  for  next  Monday 
evening,  to  effect  a  permanent  organization.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  Bund  fuer  Freiheit  und  Recht  also  held  a  meeting 
during  the  past  week  and  appointed  a  committee  to  draft 
resolutions  protesting  against  the  Sunday  Bills  introduced 
by  Senator  Blair  into  the  Senate.  These  resolutions  are  to 
be  framed  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  a  circular  issued 
by  the  North  American  Turner  Bund,  some  of  the  striking 
sentences  of  which  I  will  cite.  After  calling  attention  to 
the  measures  of  Mr.  Blair,  the  so-called  National  Sunday 
Bill  and  the  concurrent  resolution  proposing  an  amend- 
ment to  the  Federal  Constitution,  the  object  of  which  seems 
to  be  the  establishment  of  the  Christian  religion  as  a  na- 
tional religion,  the  circular  goes  on  to  use  some  strong  and 


—  3  — 

apposite  expressions  of  which  the  following  are  a  few:  "  We 
consider  these  propositions  as  an  infringement  of  the  lib- 
erty of  conscience  and  a  violation  of  the  spirit  of  our  con. 
stitution."     *     *     *     "In   our  judgment  it  is  a  matter  of 
necessity,  charity  and  humanity  to  permit  the  laborer,  after 
six  days  of  hard  work,  to  enjoy  recreation  on  the  seventh." 
•    *   «   «  Taking  it  all  in  all,  the  bill  is  the  boldest  assault 
upon  the  political  liberty  of  our  people  yet  attempted." 
*   "  By  a  law  proposed  by  Mr.  Blair,  a  purely  religious 
custom  would  be  made  an  institution,  recognized    by  the 
State,  in  violation  of  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  constitu- 
tional provisions."     *     *    *    "  The  majority  of  our  citizens 
know   what  endless  complications  the  sacrifice  of   those 
provisions  of  our  constitution  which  guarantee  the  liberty 
of  conscience  and  religion  to  our  citizens  would  lead  to,  and 
we  therefore  deem  it  our  duty  to  protest   against  such 
reactionary  assaults  upon  our  institutions."    Such  are  the 
two  wings  of  thought  as   they  stand   upon  this   question- 
Let  us  attempt  a   clear  and  dispassioned  consideration   of 
the  matter  necessary  as  it  now  is,  from   the  fact  that  such 
active  propaganda  toward  the  furtherance  of  the  measure 
are  now  beginning  to  be  made  in  our  midst. 

On  a  smaller  scale,  there  have  many  a  time  and  oft,  been 
attempts  made  in  separate  communities  to  enforce  the  so- 
called  Sunday  blue  laws,which,  an  inheritance  from  the  Pur- 
itans were  observed  in  the  New  England  States  during  the 
past  century,  and  enforced  in  accordance  with  the  strict 
spirit  of  these  statutes;  blue  laws,  the  effect  of  whose  spirit 
appears  in  the  following  section  taken  from  the  laws 
regulating  the  management  of  Harvard  College  in  the 
year  1734:  "All  the  scholars  shall  at  sunset  in  the  evening 
preceding  the  Lard's  day,  retire  to  their  chambers  and  not 
unnecessarily  leave  them ;  and  all  disorders  on  said  even- 
ing shall  be  punished  as  violations  of  the  Sabbath  are,  and 
every  scholar  on  the  Lord's  day  shall  carefully  apply  him- 
self  to  the  duties  of  religion  and  piety,  and  whosoever  shall 
profane  said  day  by  unnecesary  business  or  visiting,  walk- 


—  4  — 

ing  on  the  Common  or  in  the  streets  or  fields  in  the  town  of 
Cambridge,  or  by  any  sort  of  diversion  before  sunset,  shall 
be  punished."  Delectable  laws  and  customs  of  this  sort  it 
is  the  earnest  pleasure  and  desire  of  the  present  Sunday 
agitators  to  introduce.  The  reason  of  the  greater  attention 
paid  to  the  present  movement  and  the  greater  alarm  it  ex- 
cites is  the  fact  that  for  the  first  time  it  has  definitely  as- 
sumed national  proportions.  Senator  Blair,  who  appears  to 
have  the  stuff  of  a  fanatic  in  him,  if  we  can  judge  from  the 
exhibitions  he  has  given  of  himself  both  on  the  Senate  floor 
and  elsewhere,  that  he  has  appeared  as  the  supporter  of 
well  nigh  every  eccentric  movement  wherein  this  country 
seems  to  be  especially  productive,  set  the  ball  a  rolling  by 
his  Sunday  bill  and  at  once,  as  though  at  a  given  signal, 
this  small  beginning,  fathered  by  the  New  England  Sen- 
ator, grew  into  vast  proportions,  meetings  were  called  in 
many  places  and  the  agitation  kept  up,  8  national  conven- 
tion assembled  and  a  complete  organization  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  the  purposes  of  the  bill  effected.  One 
preacher  of  New  York  City  even  resigned  his  large  pas- 
torate to  accept  the  position  of  Field  Secretary  and  devote 
himself  entirely  to  the  work.  The  provisions  of  Senator 
Blair's  Bill  are,  as  you  may  remember,  most  stringent.  It 
prohibits  all  sorts  of  pleasures  on  the  Sunday.  No  work 
whatever  is  to  be  performed  under  penalty  of  heavy  fines  ; 
only  works  of  necessity,  charity  and  humanity  are  exempted. 
It  further  prohibits  the  carrying  of  the  mail,  all  traffic  by  land 
and  water,  the  running  of  railroad  trains,  street-cars  and 
ferry-boats,all  work,  as  it  puts  it,  that  tends  to  disturb  a  relig- 
ious observance  of  the  Sabbath.  This  whole  movement  arises 
from  a  misconception  of  the  meaning  of  a  day  of  rest ;  it  is 
entirely  out  of  consonance  with  the  spirit  of  our  time  and  of 
our  land  and  its  aim  is  to  overthrow  personal  liberty  and 
bring  to  pass  a  consummation,  which  by  many  bigots,  has 
been  since  the  formation  of  the  government  regarded 
one  to  be  devoutly  wished  for,  namely,  to  have  the 
United  States  considered  a  Christian  land  and  a  Christian 


—  5  — 

government.  We  will  consider  this  question  in  two 
lights — first,  in  an  historical  one,  as  to  the  import  of  the 
Sabbath  and  the  meaning  of  the  designation,  a  day  of  rest, 
and  secondly,  in  its  effects  upon  the  personal  liberty  of 
our  citizens  and  upon  the  significance  and  stability  of  the 
ideas  of  government  and  the  relation  between  church  and 
state  as  conceived  and  so  gloriously  achieved  by  the 
methods  here  in  vogue,  guaranteed  and  necessitated  by  the 
spirit  of  our  Constitution. 

It  is  not  necessary  here  to  go  into  the  question  of  the 
origin  of  the  Sabbath  idea.  Sufficient  to  say  that  the  cel- 
ebration of  one  day  of  rest  in  every  seven,  as  now  prevalent 
among  all  civilized  nations,  came  from  the  Jews,  for  whom 
it  was  embodied  in  the  fourth  commandment.  To  rest 
one  day  in  seven  is  a  necessity  for  man,  a  necessity  for  the 
human  constitution.  During  the  period  of  the  French  Rev- 
olution when  the  idea  prevailed  that  everything  of  the  past 
was  useless  and  harmful  and  injurious  merely  because  it  was 
past,  when  the  wisdom  and  the  reason  of  institutions  was 
not  at  all  entered  into,  but  men,  intoxicated  with  the  spirit  of 
liberty,  which  unbridled,  readily  turned  into  license,  threw 
overboard  all  the  traditions  of  the  past,  this  day  of  rest 
in  every  seven  was  abolished  too,  and  merely  to  make  a 
difference  a  law  was  passed  that  every  tenth  day  be  the  pe- 
riod whereon  to  abstain  from  labor.  It  was  however  soon 
found  to  be  impracticable,  neither  human  beings  nor  an- 
imals could  endure  it,  and  the  wise  thought,  founded  on  the 
very  nature  of  things  was  returned  to,  and  the  seventh 
day  of  rest  was  again  instituted. 

Now  what  was  the  position  of  the  Jews  toward  this 
day  of  rest?  Are  the  advocates  of  the  day  of  gloom  follow- 
ing out  the  tradition  of  the  people  of  old  from  whom  the 
Sabbath  idea  as  now  held,  came?  No,  not  by  any  means. 
True,  no  manual  labor  was  permitted,  although  even  here 
there  is  a  difference  of  opinion  as  R.  Akiba  held,  that  if 
necessary,  work  could  be  performed  on  the  Sabbath.  But  a 
day  of  gloom  it  never  was.  It  was  a  time  of  happiness,  of 


joy  and  of  helpfulness  in  every  Jewish  community.  The 
prophet  called  the  Sabbath  an  Oneg,  an  enjoyment.  It 
was  in  truth  for  them  a  day  of  rest,  of  rest  for  the  soul  and 
rest  for  the  body.  Now  what  means  rest?  It  means  not 
idleness,  it  means  not  sloth.  Rest  means  the  abstention 
from  the  usual  occupation  and  the  turning  of  the  attention 
to  something  else.  If  a  man  is  hard  at  work  all  week 
physically,  recreation  means  for  him  rest ;  aye  it  is  for 
him  a  necessity.  If  a  man  is  mentally  engaged  all  the 
while,  then  physical  occupation  is  for  him  rest.  The  Puri- 
tanic notion  of  somberness,  of  gloom,  of  darkness,  is  not 
Jewish.  The  Friday  evening  was  devoted  to  the  enjoy- 
ment in  the  family  circle,  when  cheer  and  joy  ruled  the 
hour ;  the  Sabbath  morning  was  given  to  prayer  and  com- 
munion with  their  God,  the  afternoon  to  various  and  varied 
pleasures,  among  others  the  pleasure  of  indulging  the 
kindly  feelings  of  the  heart,  occupations  such  as  visiting  the 
sick  and  the  poor.  Not  even  the  untold  fears  and  anxieties 
and  terrors  arising  from  oppression  and  persecution  could 
abolish  the  Sabbath  pleasure  and  the  Sabbath  joy ;  no  mat- 
ter how  bitter  their  outer  life  and  how  wretched  their  ma- 
terial existence,  at  that  hour  and  at  that  day,  all  else  was 
forgotten  in  the  supreme  joy  and  pleasure  of  the  mo- 
ment, for  however  thick  the  darkness  and  gloom  with- 
without,  all  thought  of  this  was  thrown  to  the  winds,  and 
within  all  was  light  and  happiness  and  undisturbed  pleas- 
ure in  every  Jewish  home,  from  hut  to  mansion. 

Not  among  the  Jews  then  can  any  justification  for  blue 
laws  be  found.  We  must  look  elsewhere  for  that.  In  Eng- 
land and  Scotland  where  the  harsh,  hard  and  gloomy  re- 
ligion of  Calvin,  as  interpreted  by  John  Knox  and  his  con- 
feres  in  the  one  country  and  the  Puritans  in  the  other  was 
introduced,  these  stringent  laws  and  regulations  of  Sabbath 
observance  took  not.  It  was  undoubtedly  a  reaction 
against  the  free  and  easy  life,  the  gaiety  and  the  uncon- 
ceruedness  of  the  Catholic  religion.  In  Catholic  countries 
the  Sunday  is  given  up  to  pleasures  of  every  kind.  The  Cov- 


—  7  - 

enanters  and  the  Puritans  in  their  bitter  hatred  of  every- 
thing that  smacked  of  Popery,  instituted  that  austerity 
and  chilling  severity  which  made  religion,  not  a  source  of 
happiness  and  of  expansion  of  the  soul,  but  a  depression 
and  a  weight  on  the  spirit,  which  made  of  the  day  of  rest 
a  torturing  of  the  senses  and  the  flesh  for  twenty  four 
hours,from  sundown  on  Saturday  to  sunset  on  Sunday. 
Pleasures  were  prohibited  and  an  interdict  placed  upon 
enjoyment  of  every  kind.  Music,  except  the  most  lugu- 
brious of  church  hyms,  was  foribdden,  a  walk  in  the  green 
fields  to  breathe  in  the  fresh,  pure  air  and  enjoy  the  flow- 
ers and  the  trees  was  a  grievous  sin,  any  indulgence  of  the 
senses  an  iniquity  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord.  A  smile,  God  for 
bid  it! — a  cheerful,  laughing  tone — that  person  was  surely 
in  the  power  of  the  evil  one.  Long,  sanctimonious  faces, 
harsh,  unpleasant  voices  were  a  necessity  to  make  the  Sun 
day  holy  ;  not  to  move  from  the  house  except  to  go  to  the 
meeting  house  and  then  to  return,  not  to  cheer,  but  to  gloom. 
This  spirit  and  this  idea  of  Sabbath  observance  were  of 
course  brought  to  this  country  by  the  Puritans  when  they 
left  England  for  these  virginal  shores  and  settled  what  are 
now  the  New  England  States.  The  so  called  blue  laws 
were  entered  upon  the  statute  books  and  enforced  in  those 
young  communities,  and  all  this  present  agitation  is  to  re 
introduce  and  re-establish  those  old  laws  formulated  by  a 
perverted  religious  consciousness,  which  imagined  that  to 
look  sour  and  gram  belonged  to  religion,  that  to  rejoice 
was  a  sin,  that  set  up  the  thought  that  gloom  is  more  pleas 
urable  to  God  than  joy,  and  length  and  sourness  of  visage 
more  acceptable  than  brightness  and  cheer  of  countenance. 
If  religion  is  to  do  good  unto  man,  it  is  to  bring  cheer  and 
joy  into  his  life  ;  there  is  heaviness  and  sorrow  enough 
without  imposing  upon  the  human  creature  the  onus  of  a 
teaching  that  falsifies  all  the  intention  of  a  wise  and 
benevolent  creator.  No  system  ever  generated  more  hy- 
pocrisy than  this  one  which  forced  human  nature  to  act 
against  its  own  inclination,  no  system  ever  did  more  harm 


to  the  true  conception  of  religion  than  did  this  which  made 
worship  a  funeral  service  and  dampened  every  bright  and 
fresh  inspiration  in  the  human  creature.  It  did  very  well 
for  its  time  when  it  could  enforce  its  dictates,  but  its  reign 
is,  thank  God  !  over. 

There  is  more  religion  in  throwing  open  the  museums 
of  art,  in  having  music  in  the  public  parks  for  the  benefit 
of  the  populace,  in  generating  a  spirit  of  sober  cheer  and  joy- 
fulness  among  the  people  on  a  Sunday  afternoon,  than  in 
compelling  a  forced  abstention  from  all  pleasure  which  will 
not  only  defeat  its  purpose  but  lead  to  circumvention  and  by 
pocrisy.  Why  not  instead  of  hankering  for  a  return  of  a  false 
and  perverted  system  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  cen- 
turies, which  is  impossible  of  faithful  observance  and  which 
rebels  against  every  dictate  of  the  human  heart  and  every 
demand  of  human  nature,  why  not,  instead  of  putting  a  prem- 
ium on  hypocrisy  and  upon  infractions  of  every  blue  law  that 
shall  be  attempted  to  be  enforced,  why  not  advance  the  true 
spirit  of  religion  among  the  people  and  take  advantage  of 
the  natural  bent  of  the  mind  and  the  heart  by  taking  heed 
of  the  many  injunctions  contained  in  the  Bible  that  time 
and  again  bids,  serve  God  with  joy,  rejoice  on  thy  feast,  thou 
and  all  with  thee,  be  happy  in  thy  family  circle,  ad- 
vance the  spirit  of  gladness  and  cheer  among  men.  No 
gloom,  no  darkness,  no  asceticism,  but  a  religion  of  bright 
ness,  a  day  of  brightness,  whatever  day  is  observed  as  the 
day  of  rest,  and  the  spirit  of  religiosity  will  be  much  more 
furthered  than  by  the  secret  violation  of  odious  laws  which 
the  legal  prohibition  of  all  pleasure  must  entail.  Let  be 
remembered  once  and  for  all  the  word  of  old,  the  word 
of  one  of  those  mighty  preachers  inspired  of  God,  one  of 
those  who  understood  human  nature  so  well,  when  he  said 
and  thou  shalt  call  the  Sabbath  a  pleasure,  a  day  whereon 
worship  and  rest  shall  be  pleasure. 

But  that  which  more  than  anything  else,  should  and 
will  militate  against  and  make  impossible  the  enactment 
of  any  such  laws  as  are  contemplated  by  these  Sabbath  leg- 


idation  movements,  is  the  fact  that  they  are  entirely  against 
the  spirit  of  our  American  institutions  and  violate  the  very 
ground  principles  of  our  constitution.  The  warrant  of  the 
continuance  and  the  stability  of  this  United  States  Gov- 
ernment as  such,  is  the  strict  observance  and  upholding  of 
the  principle  which  has  been  the  guiding  star  of  its  policy, 
and  that  is  the  complete  separation  of  Church  and  State. 

To  enforce  upon  every  citizen  of  the  country  a  com- 
pulsory observance  of  any  special  day  for  religious  service 
or  rest  is  completely  subversive  of  personal  liberty  guaran. 
teed  by  the  founders  of  our  Government  and  the  grandest 
and  proudest  prerogative  of  every  man,  woman  and  child 
dwelling  within  the  bounds  of  this  land.  To  undertake  to 
regulate  the  free  actions  of  any  man,  as  long  as  they  are  not 
subversive  of  the  welfare  of  others,  and  as  long  as  they  are 
completely  within  the  bounds  of  what  is  generally  con- 
ceived to  be  right,  is  the  characteristic  of  tyranny  and  not  of 
freedom. 

There  are  within  the  United  States  hundreds  of  thou. 
sands,  aye  perhaps  millions,  to  whom  the  establishment  of 
any  such  laws  as  these  bills  purpose,  means  the  infringe- 
ment of  free  action  as  much  as  would  a  law  forbidding  free 
speech  and  free  thought;  it  is  a  noli  me  tangere  for  the 
representative  legislative  body  of  a  country,  a  clause  of 
whose  constitution  reads:  "  Congress  shall  make  no  law  re- 
specting an  establishment  of  religion,  or  prohibiting  the 
free  exercise  thereof !"  All  religious  denominations  are  here 
alike  tolerated;  what  they  do  within  their  own  confines  is 
the  concern  of  no  one,  but  when  they  wish  to  branch  out  and 
force  their  peculiar  views  upon  others,  when  they  wish  to 
dictate  what  work  the  Government  shall  have  done  or  shall 
not  have  done,  when  they  wish  to  command  free  individ- 
uals, this  may  you  do  and  this  not,  then  must  we  cry, 
Halt  !  the  assumptions  you  are  taking  are  unwarranted; 
you  have  no  right  to  hamper  the  free  actions  of  men  to 
make  them  harmonize  with  your  forced  interpretation  of 
the  meaning  of  the  Sabbath;  bring  your  own  to  your 


—  10  — 

churches,  impress  upon  them  how  they  shall  act  and  then  if 
you  succeed  in  convincing  them  of  your  notions,  well  and 
good,  but  further  than  this  you  can  not  go,  and  all  the  agi- 
tation will  result  in  wind  for  there  is  still  enough  of  the 
spirit  of  freedom  in  this  land  to  prevent  any  such  action. 
Let  there  be  exceeding  caution  lest  any  one  of  the  mighty 
stones  in  the  foundation  of  this  Government,  which  have 
made  it  the  home  of  all  men  of  whatever  belief,  creed, 
thought,  opinion  they  may  have  been  and  are,  be  moved, 
lest  the  whole  fabric  whereon  the  ages  have  labored,  for 
our  institutions  are  the  outcome  of  the  best  in  all  past 
times  and  countries,  fall,  and  the  grandest  structure  ever 
contemplated  and  erected  by  human  minds  crumble  into 
ruin. 

None  too  jealously  can  every  portion  of  the  constitution 
that  grants  free  action,  free  thought,  free  speech  and  free 
worship,  all  of  course  within  the  bounds  of  right,  be  guarded 
and  every  attempt  at  a  subversion  thereof  be  repelled  by 
all  right-feeling  and  right-thinking  men.  Our  own  convic- 
tions and  our  own  beliefs  may  never  make  us  blind  to  the 
rights  of  others.  None  too  strongly  can  every  effort  toward 
the  embodiment  of  any  such  clause  in  the  constitution  be 
argued  and  struggled  against  by  all  who  know  and  appreci- 
ate what  the  liberty,  the  personal  liberty  that  is  here  so 
grandly  realized,  means,  not  only  to  the  individual,  but  to 
the  world  at  large,  for  the  true  purpose  of  every  such  at- 
tempt is  always  one  and  the  same  and  leaks  out  inadver 
tantly  in  a  statement  made  in  this  bill  that  looks  upon  this 
land  as  a  Christian  country.  To  this  statement,  or  to  this 
thought  I  need  not  devote  any  arguments  in  contradiction, 
for  it  is  so  against  every  intent  and  purpose  of  the  country's 
laws.  • 

The  churches  must  keep  to  themselves;  Orthodox 
Christianity,  Unitarianism,  Judaism,  what  you  will,  may 
propagate  its  doctrines  freely  and  undisturbed,  but  none 
shall  force  its  own  peculiar  tenets,  doctrines,  customs, 
observances  and  thoughts  upon  the  Government  or  any 


—  11  — 

of  its  branches.  In  the  eye  of  the  Government  one 
religious  faith  must  be  as  every  other,  one  man  as 
every  other.  The  history  of  past  states  shows  only  too 
plainly  the  danger  of  identifying  the  State  with  any  one 
special  form  of  religion,  for  the  weal  and  welfare  of  man- 
kind demand  a  complete  separation  lest  the  prejudices  of 
this  one  religion  against  all  others  cripple  the  workings  of 
the  State  and  at  once  stamp  it  as  unjust  to  all  other  relig- 
ious persuasions. 

"  Religion  should  always  be  distinct  from  civil  govern- 
ment," said  one  of  England's  greatest  statesmen.  Let  each 
pursue  its  own  path  perfectly  free  and  unhampered.  The 
original  intention  of  the  founders  of  this  Government  in 
this  respect  can  not  be  improved  upon.  In  the  nama  of 
an  Almighty  God,  creator  of  all  creatures  alike,  whose 
souls,  the  impress  of  the  divine,  stamp  them  as  equal,  as  far 
as  the  right  to  live  and  be  free  is  concerned;  in  the  name 
of  mankind  whose  progress  would  be  retarded  for  centur- 
ies should  any  such  retroactive  measures  as  these  Sunday 
blue  laws  intend,  be  indeed  incorporated  into  the  statute 
books,  in  the  name  of  personal  and  individval  liberty, 
which  in  being  deprived  of  any  one  of  its  rights  is  in  dan- 
ger of  losing  them  all ;  in  the  name  of  enlightened  religion, 
whose  watchword  is  tolerance  for  all,  we  protest  against 
any  attempt  to  force  any  such  laws  upon  the  Government 
of  this  country,  and  we  feel,  we  know  that  the  great  mass  of 
our  people,  Mitside  of  the  comparitively  few  who  would  bind 
the  free  consciences  and  actions  of  their  fellows,  protest 
with  us  as  they  desire  the  furtherance  of  the  spirit  of  toler- 
ance, justice  and  truth.  Amen  ! 


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